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The possible future American "space force"


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18 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

That's what I thought, thanks for confirming it.

Not to mention that "force per volume" is a not-so-clever way of saying "specific weight" which is density times gravity. So they're saying they can make negative density, simply by putting two electrical fields at right angles to each other. 

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On 8/1/2018 at 11:56 AM, Diche Bach said:

Isn't this "Space Force" declaration really just explicating and "officializing" a long historic series of military in space ventures which have existed since the 1940s?

That is my take on it.

Politician's decisions aren't just affecting the stuff it mentions. Its rhetoric directly influences the citizens, and in some cases, as in this one, it has a great impact on the whole world. A claim doesn't have to be a direct order. Just like a gossip can trigger school bullying, spreading disinformation can trigger the gun of a strained society and end up in ethnic cleansing. And such spreading of lies and hatred is also a war crime.

[snip]

Edited by Vanamonde
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Discussing this development in space exploration without delving into the politics behind it is an extremely fine line, and also, an arbitrary one, since politics are intrinsically involved. We know that. Nevertheless, we're going to require people to walk that fine line on this forum because the only alternative is to shut down the thread entirely to avoid having to issue warns and bans in response to the arguments which politics invariably cause here.

So if you can't leave the politics out of the thread, please just don't post in it. Yes, that sucks, and we don't like enforcing it. But in this case, it's the lesser evil. 

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Until 1947, US military aviation was split between the US Army and the US Navy. After 1947, the US created the US Air Force, which basically split the US Army Air Corps from the rest of the US Army into the new US Air Force. (The US Navy, including the Marines, retained its separate aviation branch.)

As far as I can tell, this proposal for a US Space Force is much the same, just splitting jobs dealing with space and orbital assets away from the other branches and putting it into a new US Space Force command structure.

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1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

As far as I can tell, this proposal for a US Space Force is much the same, just splitting jobs dealing with space and orbital assets away from the other branches and putting it into a new US Space Force command structure.

That’s the impression I get. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, as budget assigned to it doesn’t get diverted to fighter and bomber programs that invariably go over budget and get money from “elsewhere.”

the downside is that in the budget rounds “space” now has its own heading and will be one of the first on the chopping block.

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Sure.  You don't need stealth though, when you can get 4,000 tons into orbit....

 

npp_06001_1_model_by_william_black-d8c7r

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesigns2.php#id--Project_Orion--Orion_Battleship

https://www.deviantart.com/william-black/journal/Hard-SF-Feature-04-Scott-Lowther-504258455

The er, 'highlights', of which can be summarized as hundreds of RV nukes, and Naval guns.

Spoiler

God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

quiet

 

Footfall, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

 

Edited by 1101
Credit for Footfall, image
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1 hour ago, 1101 said:

Sure.  You don't need stealth though, when you can get 4,000 tons into orbit....

  

npp_06001_1_model_by_william_black-d8c7r

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/realdesigns2.php#id--Project_Orion--Orion_Battleship

https://www.deviantart.com/william-black/journal/Hard-SF-Feature-04-Scott-Lowther-504258455

The er, 'highlights', of which can be summarized as hundreds of RV nukes, and Naval guns.

  Hide contents

God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.

WHAM

WHAM

WHAM

quiet

 

Footfall, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

 

Very nice however, 4000 ton is an destroyer, 40K ton and we are into battleship weights. 
Design need to be scaled up an magnitude :)
And destroyers are pretty easy to kill, an battleship would probably not be much harder because of engagement speeds and massive use of nukes. 

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[snip]

You might say NASA was an cover up, USA thought about spy satellites long before sputnik. However another feature of the US is legal issues, is satellites who overfly otter countries legal? So the US would prefer to launch an small science satellite, make everything look as peaceful as possible, preferable with no military links, then launch the spy satellites. 
Soviet did not understand the issue, nobody could shoot down an satellite and US was overflying them with high attitude planes.  

More up to date, as orbital launchers start getting private and access to orbit get cheaper the dynamic changes, you have multiple companies selling access, military however want insurance and priority in an emergency. 

Edited by Snark
Politics
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Hmm... You know, the US armed forces are occasionally tasked with providing aid during emergency- here I'm specifically thinking of the coast guard. I wonder if the potential Space Force would eventually get saddled with doomsday asteroid prevention.

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3 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

I wonder if the potential Space Force would eventually get saddled with doomsday asteroid prevention.

Shouln't be a single country at that.

Would be brilliant if there's a world-wide NATO but for such stuff, and is actually world-wide.

 

But, ideas be ideas, there wouldn't be any mattress beneath your fall if it weren't there before the fall.

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